Century of Enslavement: The History of the Federal Reserve

Money plays a crucial role in our daily lives. Not only is it the currency which allows us to lead lives of relative health and comfort, but many would argue that it also serves as the driving force behind many of the world's gravest ills. Despite its overwhelming dominance in dictating a quality of life for hundreds of millions of American citizens, few understand where their dollar comes from, how it's dispersed and what factors come into play when determining its value. The exhaustive and enlightening feature-length documentary Century of Enslavement: The History of the Federal Reserve examines the answers to these fundamental questions, and exposes the questionable practices of a highly influential government institution which operates largely in shadow.

In the early years of the last century, the nation's banking system was rocked by widespread financial panic. As paranoid consumers withdrew their money in record numbers, these banks began to fail one after another. The Federal Reserve Act, originally signed into being by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913, was designed to put an end to this crisis by promoting a more stable and fairly regulated economy.

History repeated itself in the early years of the new century with the global financial crisis of 2008, the aftermath of which saw the nation's biggest banks bailed out by the United States government. How could this have occurred? By investigating the checkered history of the Federal Reserve, its complicated and confusing structure, and the secrecy in which it functions, the film sheds light on how this system has been allowed to operate in direct violation of the very rights and regulations it was designed to protect.

Many of the world's top economists believe a repeat of this crisis is inevitable. In the face of this sobering and perilous prognosis, systems like Bitcoin and others offer hopeful alternatives to our traditional economic models. Century of Enslavement: The History of the Federal Reserve aspires to a future when these bold ideas can inform a new economic reality for the nation, and when the system that currently enslaves its citizens can one day work to empower them.

19 Comments / User Reviews

there are a few ways to change the monetary system, we've seen it in blockchain and crypto currency but even those systems are manipulable. What i think we need is to return to a gold standard and remove fractional banking so like back in the 1920's the banks have to keep gold stored equal to the value of the notes they print off, and the average person will not be worried about saving money anymore because the inflation will be self regulating.

As an Economics Professor, I found the documentary to be an excellent history lesson, yet I could not ignore the paranoid theme of it. "A Century of Naivete/ignorance" would have been a more apropos title. Many people are simply paranoid of large and powerful institutions (Pentagon, the federal government), which the Federal Reserve certainly is. The Fed certainly "dropped the ball" last decade by not tightening the money supply or raising interest rates around 2004 amidst an obvious housing bubble that was "too good to be true", and Yes, some banks were "too big to fail" and the American taxpayer bailed them out in 2008. I have one simple question for James Corbett: If America's economic/banking system is one of "Enslavement", Why does 1/2 the world want to move here for better economic opportunity?

This is why I break off from the video as well. Although I definitely think we can change some things and possibly even go back to a gold standard, the fact of the matter is that this method of central banking allows for extremely rapid economic growth, and pulling down the house of debt cards may be something to painful to do now

Johnny Green
- 01/28/2019 at 21:04

David Oconnell I'm appalled at your apparent lack of understanding of how the world works. 'Why does half the world want to move here?' I can give you a reason, After WW2 the US stated foreign policy was to spread it's culture out to the rest of the world, and it is still doing that. By being bombarded by how great a nation is, of course people would want to head there, especially if they are living in poverty. Unfortunately the irony is that those people are impoverished/disadvantaged precisely because of economic strategies put in place by the US with the help of World Bank and others. On a side note, what we call American Football is currently being pushed and pushed and pushed. It is not needed nor wanted here, it's not like, 'Oh those guys don't have any sports, that's a shame, their missing out', it's being bulldozed in as yet another aspect of US culture being forced into parts of the world where it does not need to be. There is obviously big money being invested to spread it here. Economic Imperialism?
From my own experience: a 14-year old refugee lad, part of a family I supported, here in Europe. In his school, back in English speaking Cameroon, he'd learnt history from English history books, not ones of his own country(!), and had been led to believe that in Europe he wouldn't need to work, and be driven everywhere by chauffeur. So yes I can understand why he and his family would have liked a part of that.
I would encourage you to take time out, from your Economics Professor bubble, and peak between the cracks to discover how the world really works.
Actually it's scary that as an Economics Professor, you're not able to answer your own question

Find a conflict around the world and it's about money and always will be... these guys back both sides of any conflict so they can't lose... EVER! Louis McFadden had it right from the get go. These crooks brought the country to it's knees back in 1929 and will do it all over again... WWIII is around the corner because WAR is our only way out to cover up this corruption.

The bottom line of modern, fractional reserve money/banking systems should have been emphasized more:
1. They cede sovereign governments' powers to create and control the people's money to private profiteers (bankers); and
2. They create virtually all money as debt (credit) to these selfsame bankers, so that the entire money supply is earning interest for these parasites.

The chief beneficiaries are the old banking families, especially the Rothschilds, who have been collecting compounding interest on a high percentage of the entire world's money supply for centuries, amassing a fortune estimated in the hundreds of trillions of dollars. Bill Gates's fortune is chump change compared to what these crooks hold.

Of course, these vast fortunes have been used to buy up all of the major industries (including media so we don't hear about this) and gain control of all public institutions, including the political and justice systems, giving us the mess we live with today.

There are a number of different systems, including some outlined in this movie, that could effectively replace the prevailing fractional reserve system. One idea that was not covered is that advocated by Stephen Zarlenga and the American Monetary Institute (AMI): To recognize that, as Aristotle observed, "Money exists not by Nature but by law" (i.e., by fiat), stop confusing money with credit or wealth (i.e., "precious" metals), and let sovereign governments create debt-free fiat money and spend it into existence on societal needs (like infrastructure). This has been done before, with great success, as by the American colonies and by Lincoln in financing the Civil War. Note that the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to create money and control its value. The federal government does a lot of things it has no business doing, yet, here's an egregious case of it NOT doing something it very much has the right to do.